KRS-One - Hip-Hop Lives: Track Review
So there really is going to be a KRS-One album produced by Marley Marl. I remember KRS mentioning something like that ages ago, but you know how these rappers like to talk shit about things they might do.
Of course there's going to be a certain novelty for really old people as well as those of us young people with an appreciation for older rap music. (And I'm not sure how many of us there are, really.) After all, the two of them were once involved in one of the most legendary rap beefs evar.
As the story goes, KRS-One heard MC Shan's "The Bridge" and took exception to it because he felt Shan was implying that hip-hop began in Queensbridge rather than the South Bronx, though I've also read that Kris was just pissed that Marley wouldn't play one of his songs on his radio mix show, and, honestly, that sounds more along the lines of the kind of shit KRS-One would pull. The Nelly beef, anyone?
Two things: a) the actual rap beef itself was between Kris and Shan, and the two of them already did those Sprite commercials like 10 or 12 years ago, and b) this would be a lot more interesting to me if Marley Marl was actually an in-demand producer; what's the last thing he even did, that motherfucking Lords of the Underground album? I even checked Wikipedia and couldn't find anything he's done recently.
But whatever. You guys know I live to hate on shit. Their new album is called Hip-Hop Lives - obviously playing off the title of the most recent Nas album - and the first song from it, Hip-Hop Lives (I Came Back)," hit the Internets the other day. How is it? Not bad, I guess. It's definitely got that dirty Marley Marl sound. In fact, it sounds like it could have just as easily been produced in 1993, if not 1988.
I'm sure there's some rule about criticizing "the Teacha" for being overly didactic, but come on; when's the last time KRS-One did a song that about anything other than how he is hip-hop and how he's keeping hip-hop alive by, um, not dying or whatever? 1993? Maybe I'm exaggerating, but at the very least, I don't think the title track inspires confidence that Hip-Hop Lives is going to be anything other than KRS-One explaining what hip-hop is ad nauseum, as if anyone even gives a shit anymore.
Stream "Hip-Hop Lives (I Came Back)" at XXL.
